Tag: rassilon

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Angels of Popstar: Part 2

On the bridge, the Doctor and Rassilon were still working out the anomalies. “I haven’t seen this much in quite a while,” remarked Rassilon.

“The amount of potential time energy could rip Popstar in half,” muttered the Doctor. Just then, a call came to the bridge through the comms unit. Meta Knight took the call.

“Report,” he said.

“Meta Knight, it’s Amy! We’re being chased by a statue!” The Doctor’s eyes went wide. She pushed Meta Knight out of the way and took over.

“Amy, that statue, is it an angel?” she asked.

“Yes! It moves whenever-!”

“Take William and get out of there! Don’t take your eyes off it!” urged the Doctor.

“Doctor, it’s William!” came William’s voice. “That’s gonna be a bit hard! The lights are flickering down here!”

“Just do it! Hurry! If that thing touches you, I can’t get you back, even with the TARDIS!”

Down in the cargo hold, Amy and William made their way to the door with the angel statue appearing in a different spot every time the lights kicked back in. It was like an animal toying with its prey! William found the door controls and pressed a button. The door opened. He and Amy quickly left the cargo hold and shut the door just as the angel appeared in the spot they inhabited. William then picked up Amy and carried her over his shoulder. “HEY!” protested Amy.

“Keep an eye on the door!” replied William. “We don’t know how strong it is!” He then took off with Amy looking behind at the door. She saw distinctive bulges like fists caving in the metal of the door on the other side! The lights then flickered.

“Must go faster! Must go faster!! MUST GO FASTER!!”

“I know! I KNOW!!”

The Doctor stood at the bridge door, looking out for her friends. The lights started flickering. “Come on! Where are you?!” she begged her friends.

“HOLD THAT DOOR!” called William’s voice. The Doctor saw William carrying Amy and reached her hand out.

“HURRY!” she said. She successfully grabbed William’s hand and pulled him and Amy onto the bridge just as the angel statue was halfway down the hall. She then shut the door on the angel. “That won’t hold for long, but it WILL give us enough time to sound the alarm!”

“Doctor, what-?!” asked Amy.

“Later, I’ll explain later! Right now, we need to evacuate this ship!”

“It’s one statue,” remarked Meta Knight. “What can it do?”

“Meta Knight, the Weeping Angels are fast and can kill you before you got your hand on your sword!” replied Rassilon. “Now give the order to abandon ship!” Meta Knight wasn’t sure…until the door started buckling.

“That thing’s breaking through!” yelped William. Meta Knight hit the ship-wide address button on the intercom system.

“All hands, this is Meta Knight. Abandon ship. Repeat, abandon ship. The Halberd has been compromised. This is not a drill. Abandon ship.” He saw on the security cameras that the Waddle-Dee crew were evacuating the ship. He then set the self-destruct. “Kirby! Your Warp Star!” called Meta Knight. Kirby nodded, put his right arm out, and a giant, yellow, five-pointed star arrived, scooping everyone up.

“Hang on tight!” called Amy. The Warp Star then took its passengers out of the ship, just as it exploded! The star then brought everyone to the gates of a castle.

“Poyo! Dedede!” said Kirby.

“Yes, his Majesty must be informed!” agreed Meta Knight. “There might be more of those statues.”

“There most certainly will be more, but we have some breathing room,” said the Doctor.

“Doctor, what WAS that thing?!” shuddered William.

“That kind of being has many names,” replied the Doctor. “The Lonely Assassin, the Kind Murderous Psychopath, but all races know them as the Weeping Angels. They’re quantum-locked creatures that feed on the potential time energy of their victims.”

“The Weeping Angels,” supplied Rassilon, “are statues when observed, even by members of their own kind. That’s why they cover their faces. When unobserved, they’re the fastest creatures in the universe. The way they get the potential time energy they need is by touching their victim and sending it far into the past so they can live out the rest of their lives in the past.”

“…The Waddle-Dee,” realized William. “The Angel on the ship sent him to the past!”

“Do they have anything to do with counting down?” asked Amy.

“Oof, yeah, that’s when an Angel is really sadistic,” replied the Doctor. “The Angels have their own psychic powers. They can implant themselves into a victim’s mind when observed. One of their examples of mental control is by having the victim count down the minutes until their death.”

“Meaning that Angel fed well,” remarked Rassilon. “We’re not dealing with desperate Weeping Angels.”

“Don’t know if that improves our situation,” muttered the Doctor.

The group arrived at the throne room. Sitting on the throne was what looked like a humanoid blue penguin in red robes and a skull-cap crown with a pom-pom on it. He looked haggard, as Meta Knight said. “Your Majesty!” called Meta Knight. The Penguin looked up.

“Oh, hello, Meta Knight,” he said. “Kirby. …Amy Rose?”

“That’s me, King Dedede,” replied Amy. “If I might say something, you look terrible.”

“I’ve…got a lot on my mind, Miss Rose,” answered Dedede. “What brings you here? And who are your new friends?”

“Your Majesty, I’m the Doctor,” introduced the Doctor. “And these are William and Rassilon. We come here on a quest to find something called the Key to Time, but your planet is besieged by creatures that can send a person to the past, condemning them to die in a different time zone.”

“The Weeping Angels?” asked Dedede.

“Then you know of the threat we face?” asked Meta Knight.

“You could say that, Meta Knight,” replied Dedede. He briefly turned the lights off, then switched them back on again to reveal that the throne room was filled with Weeping Angels!

“You didn’t!” hissed the Doctor.

“This ain’t what you think it is, Miss Doctor,” said Dedede. “They already took a few of my Waddle-Dees before my eyes and now they’re using one of their voices!”

“He’s right, you know,” said a Waddle-Dee’s voice.

“Hey, wait! That’s the Waddle-Dee that was in the cargo hold!” yelped Amy.

“No, that’s the Angels using their victim’s voice,” replied Rassilon. “Sadists, the lot of you!”

“That’s rich, coming from you, Lord President Eternal,” mocked the Angels’ voice. “We know you’re after the Key to Time. You will surrender the means of tracking it to us.”

“And if we don’t?” asked the Doctor.

“We always wanted to try the potential time energy of a Time Lord. Dedede, we’ll give them some time to decide. We trust you have accommodations for them.”

“…Guards, take them all to the dungeon,” Dedede ordered his men, a face of regret on his beak. Waddle-Dees with spears then came in and escorted them out of the throne room.

“Your Majesty, I CAN help you!” called the Doctor. “Please, just trust me!” Dedede just sighed as they were taken away.

The TARDIS crew, Kirby, and Meta Knight were all in the same cell as a Waddle-Dee wearing a blue bandana. The poor little guy looked miserable. “They got you too, Kirby?” he mumbled.

“Bandee…” replied Kirby as he patted the poor Waddle-Dee.

“We’re doomed now!” wailed the Waddle-Dee, Bandee. “They’re forcing the King to be a jerk again and now they kidnapped Kirby!”

“Come on,” replied the Doctor, “where there’s life, there’s hope. And…Rassilon…”

“What is it, Doctor?” asked Rassilon.

“How long has your hand been glowing?” Rassilon goggled and realized her hand was glowing!

“No! Not yet! Please!” she begged.

“What’s going on with Rassilon?!” asked William.

“It’s the regeneration process!” replied the Doctor. “Her body had suffered fatal damage somewhere, so it’s rewriting itself! Rassilon, how long have you been holding it back?!” Rassilon sighed.

“Since you expelled Ginyu from my mind,” she finally answered. “It caused enough damage to the brain that it triggered the process. Amy stumbled across it when I blundered into her room after that business with the Kamen Riders and Autons and I made her swear not to tell.”

“Why are you holding it back?” asked the Doctor.

“Because the Black Guardian set a limit to how many bodies I can have. Six bodies for six segments and I used five bodies in getting my bowship time-travel capable! The next body is the absolute limit. Once I waste it, I fade!”

“…Holding back a total regeneration for days,” muttered the Doctor. “I couldn’t even do that. A few hours at most, and then I make the goofy and damaging mistake of practically exploding into a new body inside the TARDIS. She hates that, let me tell you.” That was when the Doctor got an idea. “…Rassilon…”

“Doctor?” asked Rassilon.

“Can you channel your regeneration energy into the wall?”

“Doctor!”

“I’ll keep your next body from getting hurt fatally,” promised the Doctor. “Right now, though, we need to escape.”

“…I’m going to hold you to that. Everyone, stand back!” The Doctor herded everyone to a corner in the cell as Rassilon allowed herself to glow completely. “…All right, Rassilon. It’s up to you,” said the former Lord President Eternal. She then threw her hands towards the cell door, bending her head in the same direction, and golden light and energy erupted from her body! The energy destroyed the door and blew a hole in the wall. Kirby then got an idea and inhaled in Rassilon’s direction!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Angels of Popstar: Part 1

“That doesn’t make sense,” muttered the Doctor as she checked the console. “No planet looks like that.”

“What is it, Doctor?” asked Rassilon as she approached the console.

“Rassilon, do you know of any planets that look like stars?” quizzed the Doctor.

“…N…Not that I know of. Why?”

“The coordinates for the fourth segment seem to be indicating that such a planet exists.” The Doctor displayed the coordinates on the scanner, even giving an image of the planet. It was a yellow, five-pointed star with two rings around the planet intersecting in the middle.

“…Rather odd,” remarked Rassilon. “What does the TARDIS say it’s called?”

“It appears the name of the planet is…Popstar.”

“Popstar?!” asked Amy’s voice as she and William entered the console room. “Let me see! Let me see!” She saw the planet on the scanners. “Ooh! I know people from there!”

“Amy?” asked the Doctor.

“Popstar is home to a place called Dream Land, a kingdom known for peace and quiet!” explained Amy. “It’s the perfect little land if you like that sort of thing! Though, usually, a few warriors from it compete in a tournament Sonic joined called the Smash Brothers Tournament!”

“I think I heard about that tournament,” mused Rassilon. “Fighters from various timelines and sub-dimensions compete in a fighting competition.”

“I’m usually a spectator in that tournament,” continued Amy, “but I made friends with the fighters from Popstar! Come on! Let’s go see!”

“Well, here’s hoping Popstar stays peaceful,” said the Doctor as she set the TARDIS on course for Popstar.

In a grassy landscape, next to a tree, a dome-shaped house sat on a hill. It was a bright, sunny day and inside, the owner of the house was snoozing away. The owner…wasn’t humanoid, for a start. It was a pink ball with flipper arms and big feet, but no legs. Its face was in the center of the ball, two eyes, cheeks, and a mouth. It also identified as male. The pink ball-person snoozed, snoring softly. His sleep was disturbed when the sound of the TARDIS arriving echoed through his house. “Mmm! Poyo?” he mumbled when he woke up. He got out of bed and waddled to the door to look outside. He blinked in surprise when the TARDIS materialized right in his front yard. The TARDIS made its usual thud and opened the door. “Poyo?” quizzed the pink creature. The TARDIS crew then came out. Amy’s face lit up when she saw the creature.

“KIRBY!” she said.

“Amy?!” asked the creature.

“That’s right, Kirby!” replied Amy. “I know it’s not my usual red dress, but-.”

“Amy!” cheered the creature happily as it jumped into Amy’s arms.

“Whoa! Hey!” laughed Amy. She then turned to her friends. “Everyone, this is Kirby, the hero of Popstar!”

“Hiii!” greeted Kirby.

“A baby Star Warrior?!” yelped the Doctor.

“I thought Star Warriors were myths,” remarked Rassilon.

“Kirby’s no myth,” assured Amy. “And neither is his appetite. William, you got that cake I asked for?”

“Right here,” replied William as he pulled out a pink cake with strawberries on it. Kirby’s eyes lit up. He then opened his mouth and created a powerful suction! “WHOA! HEY!” yelped William. Kirby then sucked the cake up and ate it, plate and all. Kirby then burped and the plate came out, clean as a whistle.

“Still a hungry boy, aren’t you, Kirby?” giggled Amy.

“Poyo!” agreed Kirby.

“Definitely a baby Star Warrior,” said Rassilon. “But there must be an adult one nearby.”

“That would be Meta Knight,” explained Amy. “Although, I wouldn’t say he’s nearby. …Unless…Kirby, do you know where Meta Knight’s ship, the Halberd, is?”

“Meta?” asked Kirby. He then thought for a bit, then grinned. “Poyo!” he said with a smile.

“You do? Show us!”

“Amy, can we really afford to see this Meta Knight?” asked the Doctor. “We still need to look for the Key to Time segment here.”

“Don’t worry, Meta Knight can help us find it if he understands the situation,” replied Amy. “Kirby, lead the way!”

“Poyoi!” called Kirby as he took off to the east.

“Come on, everyone!” called Amy. The group ran after Kirby.

A navy-blue ball person with a mask, glowing yellow eyes, a cape, armored boots, mitt-style gloves, and a golden sword with curved blades jutting out of the main one was on the bridge of his personal warship. He had detected strange readings of a temporal nature and was trying to puzzle them out. He couldn’t help but feel like someone was watching him. As he studied the readings, an orange thing with a face, but no mouth, approached him. This was a Waddle-Dee and this specific one wore a sailor’s hat. “Meta Knight, Sir!” he said.

“Hm?” asked the ball-person, Meta Knight. “What is it, Sailor Waddle-Dee?”

“Kirby is at the entrance ramp to the Halberd, Sir,” reported Sailor Waddle-Dee. “He has companions with him. One of them looks like Amy Rose from Mobius, but in a rather…goth outfit.”

“…Bring them to the bridge,” ordered Meta Knight.

A few minutes later, the TARDIS crew and Kirby were brought to the bridge. Meta Knight was still pouring over the readings. “I presume you have business here, visitors,” said Meta Knight.

“…Is the black really that out of place for me?” asked Amy.

“I normally see you in red,” replied Meta Knight as he turned to face everyone. “So, Miss Rose, you decided to visit Popstar. But I don’t see Sonic, unless he’s out for a run as usual.”

“Not this time,” said Amy. “I’m here with my new friends. Meet William from 21st Century Earth and Rassilon and the Doctor of-.”

“Rassilon?!” Meta Knight drew his sword. “So, if that’s THE Doctor, then I must surmise that the Time War has begun again! Not here on Popstar! You and the Daleks won’t touch it!”

“We can’t restart the Time War anyway,” replied Rassilon. “Gallifrey is no more, Star Warrior.”

“Rassilon speaks the truth,” said the Doctor. “Besides, we have more pressing issues.”

“Do you now?” hissed Meta Knight.

“Meta Knight, I promise, we’re not here to recruit you for any war,” said Amy.

“We’re on a quest for the Key to Time,” explained the Doctor. “Have you heard of it?” Meta Knight sheathed his sword.

“I’ve heard that bedtime story, yes,” he said.

“It’s not a bedtime story, Mr. Meta Knight,” replied William. “We have half the segments already.”

“The next one is here on Popstar,” explained Amy. “We have a tracer, but we need to know where on Popstar it is.”

“If I can suss out the temporal anomalies my ship is picking up,” said Meta Knight, “perhaps I can help and get the Time Lords off this planet.”

“Poyo?” asked Kirby.

“Kirby, the Time Lords were dangerous, setting rules upon time itself and keeping other powers from discovering time travel to the extent they reached,” replied Meta Knight.

“…The sad thing is, that kind of gate-keeping is one of the reasons I left Gallifrey,” remarked the Doctor.

“What temporal anomalies are you getting?” asked Rassilon.

“Perhaps you can figure it out,” remarked Meta Knight as he stepped aside to let the Doctor and Rassilon do their work. The two Time Lords checked over the readings.

“…That looks like…” said Rassilon.

“Potential time energy,” finished the Doctor. “Like someone is dropping people into the past to live out their remaining years.”

As the two Time Lords worked, Amy, Kirby, and William followed a Waddle-Dee as he led them on a tour of the Halberd. “King Dedede is very generous with funding this ship,” said the Waddle-Dee. “Though I suspect it comes from the taxes he collects.”

“How IS Dedede these days?” asked Amy.

“…Looking kind of haggard. Two.”

“Haggard?” asked William. “Maybe I should make a house call. You said he’s a king. Where’s his castle?”

“Oh, not far from here. Two.”

“…Two?” quizzed Amy.

“Hm? Two what?” asked the Waddle-Dee.

“No, you just said two,” said Amy.

“No, I didn’t!” protested the Waddle-Dee.

“I’m sure you did.”

“I didn’t! Two.”

“I heard that,” said William. “You just said two.”

“You guys are crazy! I didn’t count!” Just then, the lights flickered. “Oh for-! I just had them fixed! One.”

“Amy, something weird’s going on here,” muttered William.

“No kidding. Waddle-Dees don’t count absentmindedly,” replied Amy. She then saw something. “Hey, that wasn’t there earlier, was it?” she asked. William turned to see that a statue was there. It looked like an angel in a chiton covering its face as if it were crying.

“Huh, interesting art piece,” said William. “Hey, Waddle-Dee, can you-?” he turned to speak to the Waddle-Dee, only he wasn’t there. “Waddle-Dee?”

“Huh?” Amy now looked around. “Hey, Waddle-Dee!” called Amy. As she looked, she saw that the statue wasn’t covering its face. “…Um, William…” she said. William looked at the statue and goggled.

“That thing was covering its face, right?” he said. The lights flickered. When they were fully on again, the statue had a sadistic smile on its face and moved closer, its arms outstretched, ready to grab the two!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Riding While Masked: Part 4

The Doctor and the Ridewatch Riders intercepted Decade before he went deeper into the sublevels of Tokyo Tower in 2013. “Decade, please, listen to me!” urged the Doctor.

“Get out of my way!” shouted Decade.

“Decade, it’s not going to turn out the way you think it is!” urged Woz. Decade wasn’t listening. He slashed again with his Ride-booker still in sword mode.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this against an elder Kamen Rider!” groaned Zi-O. He then summoned a strange device that looked somewhat gun-like.

“Zikan Girade!” said a voice. Zi-O then pulled something on the device forward so it looked like a sword with a clock hand style blade. “KEN!” Zi-O slashed.

“No! Sougo! Don’t escalate this!” protested the Doctor.

“And Sougo’s brought his weapon out,” grumbled Rassilon as everyone saw the goings-on outside from the scanner.

“Hoo boy, we sure he ain’t American?” joked William. He then spotted something. “Hey, what’s that?” he asked. He pointed to a phial of a liquid on the floor. Rassilon picked it up and had the TARDIS scan it.

“…It’s anti-plastic!” she said. “Made by one of Tsukasa’s allies! Hang on, I think I have a theory.” She ran the figures through the TARDIS computers. Her eyes goggled when she saw the readings. “…It was an insurance policy!” she whispered.

“What do you mean?” asked Amy.

“Tsukasa was going to use it on the Nestene Consciousness in this time,” explained Rassilon. “But the Doctor and Tsukasa of this time will already use theirs. AHA!”

“Rassilon?” asked William.

“William, how many tests does a vaccine have to go through?” asked Rassilon.

“Millions of-.” William’s eyes popped open. “…The anti-plastic of this time would have failed somehow?!”

“It’s the chronons of 2025! They can’t be used against the native chronons of 2013!”

“…But Decade doesn’t know that!” realized Amy.

“I know how to deescalate the situation!” said William. He then snatched the anti-plastic from Rassilon and left the TARDIS!

“WILLIAM! GET BACK IN HERE!” protested Rassilon.

The Doctor was still trying to get the Riders to stop fighting. “Everyone, please!” she pleaded. “There’s no reason to-!”

“STOOOOOOOOOPPP!!” called William’s voice. Everyone turned to see William holding the anti-plastic phial above his head.

“William, get back in the TARDIS!” protested the Doctor.

“Tsukasa, tell me, does this look familiar?!” asked William.

“My anti-plastic?!” he yelped. “How did you-?!”

“You dropped it in the console room!” replied William. “Interesting that you’d use 2025 anti-plastic on a 2013 Nestene Consciousness! Now you listen to the Doctor or I smash it here and now!”

“You’re going to regret that threat!” snarled Decade as he got ready to slash.

“NO! Decade, wait! Just wait a minute, please!” begged the Doctor. “Let William smash it to the ground!”

“What?! Why?!” demanded Decade.

“Because that’s how there were remnants of the Nestene that created the Autons of 2025! That’s how the paradox started! We brought back a weapon that would fail! The leftover signal would reside in the chronons and wait until they aligned with 2025 again!”

“You…You’re lying!”

“Why on earth would I lie about that?! We’re sitting on one gigantic time paradox here and you’re the key!”

“Th…The Key?!”

“I thought it was the Ridewatches, but it’s YOU, Tsukasa!”

“I…I can’t be-!”

“William, smash the phial! Smash it to pieces!”

“Way ahead of you!” called William as he threw the phial to the ground. That’s when time went crazy! Everyone was moving in painful slow-motion!

“HUUUUUURRRRRRYYYYYYY!” called the Doctor. “GEEETTT BAAACK IIINNN THEEE TAAARRRDDIIISSSS NOOOOOWWW!”

“WHHAAAAAATTT’SSSSS HAAAAAPPPPEENNNNIIINNNNG?!” shouted Decade as he and the Riders made for the TARDIS.

“IIIITTT’SSS THEEEE PAAAARRRRAAADOOOOXXXX!” guessed Geiz. “IIIITTTT’SSSS REEEESOOOLLLVVVINNNGGG IIITTTSSSEEELLLFFFF!”

“YEEEEESSSSS!” confirmed the Doctor. “MMMUUUSSSTTTT GEEEEETTTT TOOOO THEEEE TAAAARRRRDDIIIISSSSSS!!!!!”

“Come on, guys! Come on!” begged Amy.

“If they stay out there any longer-!” shuddered Rassilon. Thankfully, she didn’t need to find out. Everyone made it inside.

“Right! Back to this location in 2025!” declared the Doctor.

“What about the Another Riders?!” argued Decade.

“They were never there, hopefully,” replied the Doctor. She got the TARDIS to take off.

Over in 2013, a man with curly blonde hair and a coat made up of a patchwork of fabrics was making the final adjustments to a machine, dodging tentacles from a tank all the while. “You won’t find me so easy to ensnare this time!” taunted the man, the Sixth Doctor.

“Doctor, come on!” called the Decade of 2013. He then inserted a card into his white Decadriver.

“Final Attack Ride: De-De-Decade!” it called. Three rings of cards appeared and Decade sailed through them, his foot outstretched and striking the Auton Copy of himself. It exploded.

“Do you mind not Rider-kicking here!” protested the Sixth Doctor. He then switched the machine on. “OUT!” The tentacles then thrashed in pain!

Right at the entrance to Tokyo Tower, Evelyn Smythe was looking anxiously at the door, not sure if she liked the rumbling. She breathed a sigh of relief when the Doctor and Decade arrived. “Oh, thank goodness you’re alright, Doctor!” she sighed.

“Only just,” replied the Sixth Doctor, rubbing the cat lapel pin in relief. “But that should do it. The Auton menace of Japan is over!”

“That’s a relief,” replied Evelyn, “because, with all the young men making flying kicks and turning into martial arts bug people, I think you could do with a bit of a sit-down!”

Over in 2025, the TARDIS arrived at the base of Tokyo Tower. No one left the TARDIS just yet. “Doctor-!” hissed the present-day Tsukasa.

“Sh!” replied the Doctor. The console beeped at a certain frequency, then the frequency lowered and lowered until…

“…Safe to talk?” asked Keito.

“Temporal Paradox: resolved,” replied the Doctor. “No bumps in the time track and no killer window dummies. The signal is nonexistent. …Erm, yes, everyone, safe to talk.”

“…Could I get some sort of explanation or will you be high-handed and Time Lordish like you were with that ugly coat?!” hissed Tsukasa.

“Try me,” said the Doctor.

“Where are the Autons?!” asked Tsukasa.

“Oh, they died before they find Geiz and Woz and duplicate them,” replied the Doctor. “You see, the prolonged fight between us is what prompts the Autons to duplicate them, not just being plucked off the streets like that. That’s just what starts the paradox.”

“I…see,” said Tsukasa. “And…”

“…Yes?”

“William, what did you intend to do with the anti-plastic?”

“Oh, smashing it to the ground WAS my intention,” replied William. “Rassilon gave me the idea.”

“You see, if the anti-plastic of 2025 touched the Nestene Consciousness of 2013,” explained Rassilon, “the latent 2025 chronons would have waited in the remains of the Nestene Consciousness and then propagated throughout the Autons the instant 2025 began.”

“So, in the correct version of history, the machine the Doctor rigged up was all that’s necessary?”

“…It’s…not so much that there’s a correct or incorrect version of history,” said Rassilon. “It’s more something to do with the survival of the universe. The paradox was triggered by us bringing the 2025 anti-plastic to 2013. It caused a dangerously high release of temporal energy.”

“Which damaged an already weakened part of the space-time continuum,” guessed Keito, “making it a bad place to have a paradox, like the Doctor said.”

“Erm…sort of,” replied the Doctor. “But Tsukasa solved the potential problem of the Nestene already in 2013.”

“So…it never happened?” asked Sougo.

“…Um…not quite. You see, the real center of the paradox was caused by the 2025 anti-plastic coming back with us and us mistakenly using it on the sly. The anti-plastic would have failed and the Nestene Consciousness would have fractured and implanted those fragments into the chronons, thus sparking the Auton Civil War.”

“But you and William forced me to realize in time that I was the one that caused the Autons of 2025 in the first place!” said Tsukasa, exasperated.

“Hope for you yet, hm?” chuckled Rassilon. The Doctor then saw Amy’s face.

“Amy? What’s wrong?” she asked.

“…Doctor, Rassilon,” said Amy, “none of what we just discussed makes any sense!”

“…Well…how should I put this…time paradoxes very rarely do. That’s why they’re paradoxes.”

“…You really think that’s clever, huh?” scoffed Tsukasa. “I’ve had enough.” He then summoned an Aurora Curtain.

“What have I told you about using those things in the-!” The Doctor didn’t get very far as Tsukasa stepped through and the Curtain vanished. “…Oh, never mind!”

“I think we’d better go,” Sougo suggested to Keito and Woz. “We still have things to do.”

“Agreed, Waga Mao,” replied Woz. “Let’s go home.” Woz, Sougo, and Keito then left the TARDIS.

“…Wait a minute, if the Autons aren’t here, and they were after the control unit-!” gulped William. Amy dashed to her room and checked something. She then sighed in relief and returned to the console room with the control unit in her hand.

“Doctor, does the TARDIS have special time shields?” she asked.

“It does,” replied the Doctor, sighing in relief, “but it’s the control unit’s original nature as a segment of the Key to Time that protected it. Speaking of which…” she took the tracer and touched the control unit with it. It then turned into its real shape of the third segment. “There we go! Halfway there! Now, let’s see where the next one is!”

As the Doctor worked on the console, Rassilon returned to her room. Her hand was glowing again. She concentrated hard, but the glow was taking longer to go away. It finally faded. “…I can’t waste this body!” she begged herself. “I need more time!”

“Erm, Rassilon?” asked Amy’s voice. It was then that Rassilon realized she went into AMY’S room with the hedgehog girl in it.

“…You saw nothing!” she hissed.

“The heck I didn’t!” retorted Amy. “Why was your hand glowing?!”

“That’s not important right now!”

“Rassilon, if there’s something wrong-!”

“Amy Rose!” Amy backed up from Rassilon at that sudden bark. “…Amy, I’d rather the Doctor not find out, otherwise she’d forget the quest and focus on me. She needs to apply her bleeding hearts on the entire universe instead of one person.”

“…All right, but you WILL tell her one day,” insisted Amy. “…Come on, let’s get you back to your room.” Amy helped Rassilon back to her room.

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Riding While Masked: Part 3

The Autons outside weren’t letting up. “Come on, come on!” grumbled the Doctor as she worked the controls. She then pulled on a lever…but it didn’t move. “…Of all the-! RASSILON!”

“What?!” asked Rassilon.

“You jammed the brakes on! That’s why TARDIS maintenance is best left to me!” She then found a mallet and swung it at the lever. NOW the Time Rotor moved up and down again! The TARDIS made its usual takeoff noise, but the takeoff was rather sharp, knocking people around. After a good minute of shaking, the TARDIS settled down with everyone picking themselves up. “All right, sound off,” said the Doctor. “Who’s not dead?”

“I think I clonked heads with someone,” complained William.

“Me,” replied Amy. “You clonked heads with me.”

“Crap. Sorry.”

“Still alive,” said Rassilon.

“So are we,” said Tsukasa, speaking for his fellow Riders. Sougo, Keito, and Woz goggled again.

“So it wasn’t a dream?!” asked Keito.

“It appears not, Geiz-kun,” replied Woz.

“How-?!” asked Sougo.

“It’s a bit complicated,” replied Rassilon. “First, you have to imagine a big box inside a small box.”

“…Then?” quizzed Sougo.

“Then you have to make it,” finished Rassilon. “It’s the second step I stumbled on a lot when I made the first TARDIS.”

“Everyone, why don’t you all give them a tour of the place?” the Doctor suggested to her crew. “I need to input the data. Oh, Sougo, could you and your friends give me your Ridewatches? Perhaps I can pinpoint the exact moment the paradox began with them.”

“Sure,” replied Sougo.

“Wait a minute! Doctor, that kind of technology-!” argued Rassilon.

“Rassilon, please!” urged the Doctor. “I’d rather not risk peripheral damage to the timeline.”

“…Very well.” Rassilon turned to the Riders. “You heard her. We need to trace the origin of the paradox.”

“Fine, fine,” grumbled Keito as he handed over his Ridewatch. Sougo and Woz did the same and the Doctor wired them into the TARDIS console.

“Come on, guys!” called Amy, remembering the Doctor’s suggestion. “I know the best rooms here!”

“There’s more?!” asked Sougo.

“The other doors should have made it obvious,” remarked Tsukasa. Amy led everyone on a tour of the best rooms in the TARDIS with Rassilon and William stayed behind.

“…I suppose Amy is sufficient for-,” said the Doctor.

“Doctor, why are you doing this?” asked William.

“…I don’t know as I follow.”

“When we tried to undo Ezar’s transformation into a Krynoid…”

“…Ah.”

“So you DID say something about this kind of thing,” remarked Rassilon.

“Her exact words,” explained William, “ were that several laws of time prevent her from messing with established history for a start and those laws spawn from the simple fact that doing that is the messiest of quick fixes that just create paradoxes out across time and space.”

“…Those were my exact words, and I meant them,” confirmed the Doctor.

“But you’ve decided to mess with established history right now,” observed Rassilon.

“…If there’s no other way, yes! Look, William, there are just some secrets of time that I cannot risk divulging, and that stems from the fact that I don’t know what lies ahead for you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” snapped William.

“William, you met previous companions of mine. There will come a time where you and I will part company and I don’t know what you’ll do or who you’ll meet or what you’ll tell them or what they may force you to tell them. The basic fact of the matter is that there are some secrets that a Time Lord must never EVER reveal.”

“It’s something to do with the origin of the greater paradox surrounding the Autons, isn’t it?” asked Rassilon.

“…Yes,” said the Doctor.

“And when Tsukasa told us what was going on, you thought about something, but didn’t elaborate!” said William. “Doctor, I need to understand!”

“William!” snapped the Doctor. She then drew in a breath to calm down. “…I’ll say this much; it has to do with the nature of the universe and the fabric of time itself. Somehow, there’s an unpredictable reaction between the two. You know what a temporal paradox is, yes?”

“Yes, when someone goes back in time to alter the past, only their actions in the past caused the future in the first place.”

“That’s one example,” remarked Rassilon. “And that’s the pertinent one, isn’t it, Doctor.”

“…Yes. And that’s all that I’m prepared to say,” replied the Doctor.

“William, I think we’d best let the Doctor work right now,” suggested Rassilon. “We’d best not interrupt her and risk peripheral damage to the timeline.”

“…All right,” grumbled William. He and Rassilon headed after Amy and her group while the Doctor checked things over.

After a while, the Doctor sighed. “Useless,” she muttered. “All because Tsukasa wants a quick fix. …Tsukasa… …Tsukasa…” The Doctor tapped her chin, then typed something into the console. “Timeline check on Tsukasa Kadoya, keyword: Rider Forms.” The scanner then revealed all the forms Tsukasa took as Kamen Rider Decade. “…Why is that one separate from the base form? It sure looks the same.” The Doctor checked on the form. The minor difference was that the light on the helmet’s forehead was purple instead of yellow. She goggled when she saw what that form really was. “Violent Emotion, oh dear. Tsukasa, you can’t use that form at this time!” At that moment, everyone filed back into the console room.

“Are we there yet?” asked Tsukasa. “We seem to be taking our sweet time.”

“…You know, you’re a bit of a mystery, Tsukasa,” remarked the Doctor.

“Oh?”

“I can’t think of a single reason why you’d get so angry over a minor mistake like that,” continued the Doctor. Tsukasa’s eyes went wide.

“…You…you guessed?!” he spluttered.

“Tsukasa, you can’t risk using your Violent Emotion form like that,” urged the Doctor. “You’ve already surrendered it when you stopped being a destroyer!” By then, a strange energy washed over everyone, freezing Tsukasa, but not everyone else.

“Doctor, what’s going on?!” asked Amy. “Tsukasa’s frozen!”

“Not only that, he’s phasing in and out of existence!” observed Keito.

“That’s just confirmation of my theory,” shuddered the Doctor.

“…But you’re not gonna tell us, aren’t you?” said William.

“They’re the cogs of a great machine going in opposite directions, time and space crushing each other to death like angry beasts unleashed,” said the Doctor.

“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” observed Rassilon. “The time paradox?”

“Yes,” confirmed the Doctor. “There are good and bad places to have them. This is a bad place, just bad luck in the game of universal dice, really. But if we don’t do something, everything could unravel.”

“Everything?” asked Woz.

“Everything!” repeated the Doctor. “Too large a concept to have any meaning, isn’t it? Can you imagine the chaos of every particle of matter accelerating to the point of destruction? And even destruction is too small a word! Terror, agony, they don’t even come close!”

“So if we don’t destroy the Autons-,” ventured Sougo.

“I’m not sure that’s what we need to do,” interrupted the Doctor.

“Doctor?” asked Rassilon.

“You mean you don’t know what’s caused the time paradox?” asked William.

“I thought the nexus point was when the Autons were activated after the death of the Nestene Consciousness in 2013,” explained the Doctor, “and that we had caused that by bringing the Ridewatches there.”

“What’s made you change your mind?” quizzed Amy.

“Tsukasa,” replied the Doctor. “His Violent Emotion state. He’s willing to bring that form into existence again.” That was when Tsukasa started moving.

“How did you-?!” he spluttered.

“The time distortion’s gone,” remarked Rassilon.

“Time distortion?” asked Tsukasa.

“Yeah, didn’t you notice?” asked William.

“We were outside time, everyone,” explained the Doctor. “Looking in on the impending disaster.”

“Doctor, have we landed yet?!” insisted Tsukasa. The TARDIS then made its arrival noise and thud.

“Oh dear, we have,” gulped the Doctor. Tsukasa then pulled out his Decadriver.

“Then it’s time to finish this!”

“Tsukasa, no!” argued Sougo. He, Keito, and Woz blocked the door.

“Get out of the way!” demanded Tsukasa.

“Tsukasa, using your Violent Emotion state won’t help this situation!” urged Geiz.

“We’ll stop you if we have to!” warned Woz as he and his fellow Riders pulled out their respective BeyonDriver and Ziku Drivers, attaching them to their waists.

“You can’t stop me!” replied Tsukasa as he opened his Decadriver and pulled out a card. Sougo, Keito, and Woz then pressed the buttons on their Ridewatches and Miridewatch, prompting them to say “Zi-O!”, “Geiz!” and “Woz!” respectively. Tsukasa flinched, then growled.

“I have to do this!” he insisted. “Henshin!” He then put the card into the Decadriver!

“Kamen Ride: Decade!” It announced once he closed it. The Ridewatch Riders then inserted their trinkets into the belts.

“Henshin!” they all called.

“Rider Time! Kamen Rider Zi-O!”

“Rider Time! Kamen Rider Geiz!”

“TOUEI! Future Time! Sugoi! Jidai! Mirai! Kamen Rider Woz! WOZ!” All the Kamen Riders were ready! Decade charged at them, but Zi-O and Geiz tripped him up while Woz pinned him down once he hit the floor. The one thing they all forgot was never let Decade reach his Ride-booker. He opened the book on his left and drew a card, then inserted it into the Decadriver.

“Attack Ride: Slash!” it announced. The Ride-booker then unfolded into a sword and he slashed at the Riders pinning him down. He got up and ran out of the TARDIS!

“STOP!” called Zi-O as he and his friends rushed out after Decade.

“NO! PLEASE! GET BACK-!” protested the Doctor. She growled when they didn’t listen. “Rassilon, Amy, William, stay here and monitor the situation!” she ordered as she left.

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Riding While Masked: Part 2

“…Temporal compression technology!” whispered the Doctor.

“But…how?!” asked Rassilon.

“You’ll get your explanations later,” replied Tsukasa. “Right now, we need to get you to safety.” He pulled out a strange device, then put it to his waist. The device then created a belt around him. He then pulled out a card as he opened the device. “Henshin!” he said. He then slid the card into the device.

“Kamen Ride!” it announced. He then closed the device. “Decade!” Armor then appeared around him. It was magenta and his helmet looked like cards with green eyes.

“Kamen Rider Decade,” said the Doctor. Plas-Keito then put his strange watch device to his waist. It entered him, surrounding him in dark energy, then he turned into a monstrous creature that vaguely was modeled after a red and black digital watch with teeth and horrid eyes.

“GEIZ!” came the demonic voice. On the shoulder was “Geiz 2068”.

“Another Geiz, huh?” scoffed Decade. “Shouldn’t be too much trouble.” The two then fought.

“You don’t possess the Geiz Ridewatch,” said Another Geiz. “You cannot defeat me now.”

“No, but I bought time,” replied Decade. Another Geiz then noticed that the Doctor and her crew were gone, along with the control sphere!

“Locate and destroy thieves!” ordered Another Geiz. “Destroy Enemy Autons as well!” Decade went off in pursuit of the Doctor.

The TARDIS crew ran as fast as they could, but then more Autons approached, led by someone in gray robes and a scarf. “Control Unit located,” he said as he pulled out a device like Another Geiz’s! “Destroy. Total destruction.” He pressed the button.

“Woz!” said a demonic voice. He then put the device to his waist and, like Another Geiz, he was surrounded by dark energy. The energy dissipated to reveal a monstrous white and green-trimmed monster with teeth and horrid eyes, modeled after a smart-watch. “WOZ!” This one had the words “Woz 0000” on his thigh.

“Another one?!” asked William.

“What’s going on here?!” asked Rassilon. “How did the Nestene Consciousness get ahold of temporal compression technology?!”

“I have theories, none of them are good,” replied the Doctor.

“Hey! Another Woz!” called a voice. Everyone turned to see another high-school boy. “You leave them alone!”

“Target: Tokiwa Sougo,” droned the Auton Commander known as Another Woz. “Eliminate.”

“I don’t think so! Those people are too important!” retorted the kid, Sougo. He then pulled out yet another device!

“No! Kid! That’s dangerous!” urged the Doctor.

“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” assured Sougo. “I have a feeling it will work out!” He then rotated the face of the device and attached another machine with a slot on either side to his waist. It formed a belt strap like Decade’s. Sougo then pressed the button.

“Zi-O!” announced a more normal voice. Sougo then inserted the circular device into the right hand slot, then pressed a button on the belt. The belt tilted so the attached device went down. Sougo then posed.

“HENSHIN!” he called. He then spun the belt and it rotated once until it returned to its horizontal position.

“Rider Time!” it called. It then sang “Kamen Rider Zi-O!” Armor then appeared over him. It was dark blue gray with a wristwatch theme. The helmet looked like an analog watch with the kanji for “Rider” in the middle of the clock face.

“…A Kamen Rider using temporal compression technology?! But that’s impossible!” said the Doctor. “…Unless…of course! The device and belt were meant to be paired!”

“You guys get out of here!” called Sougo, now Kamen Rider Zi-O. “I’ll handle Another Woz and his dummies!”

“But Decade’s fighting Another Geiz and his Autons!” protested Rassilon. Speaking of Decade, he arrived on his motorcycle, modeled after his helmet.

“Everyone, get ready for transit!” he called. Another Geiz and his Autons arrived.

“Enemy Commander!” he called when he spotted Another Woz. The two Another Riders then fought each other.

“What the-?!” The Doctor’s question was cut off as a curtain of gray energy swallowed them up.

The group arrived at an abandoned warehouse. The two Kamen Riders cancelled their transformations and resumed their civilian identities. “Sorry for the Aurora Curtain, but we had to make our escape,” explained Tsukasa.

“Don’t worry,” said Sougo, “this place was cleared a while ago.”

“Then, perhaps,” said the Doctor, “someone could kindly explain why two Auton Commanders attacked one another?! The Nestene Consciousness won’t allow Autons to fight Autons!”

“There’s no Nestene Consciousness controlling them, Doctor,” replied Tsukasa. “They activated after the passing of the Nestene, when we both dealt with them in 2013.”

“…Those Autons,” said the Doctor, “are acting independently?”

“The signal never fully cut out in 2013, Doctor. It’s been slowly building power since we shut it down beneath Tokyo Tower.”

“…Then I wasn’t as thorough as I thought. And now the Autons have control over temporal compression technology.”

“Doctor, what IS temporal compression technology?” asked William.

“I’m a bit lost in the Time Vortex here myself,” admitted Amy.

“Temporal compression technology,” explained Rassilon, “steals timelines and historical events around a certain person, putting it all into one device, creating a harmful causal loop, a Bootstrap Paradox, if you will.”

“Unless, of course, you’re a time traveler yourself,” said the Doctor. “If you make a device based on YOUR history, your power, theoretically, is amplified, but it would cause damage to your body and cause a time paradox that would rend you and all you love asunder…unless you had something to handle and correct the paradox, such as Sougo’s belt. Sougo, where did you get that belt?”

“It came to me from an old future version of me where I became a king of time known as Ohma Zi-O,” replied Sougo.

“Ohma Zi-O?” asked Rassilon. “…I think I tried to recruit him for the Time War. He refused and sent me and my soldiers away.”

“Serves you right, frankly,” remarked the Doctor. “So, it’s a paradox that eventually erased him…but the technology can be made in the present.”

“So how did the Autons find that tech?” asked William.

“The Autons would have to keep the people they copied alive so they could access the twisted powers of their Rider forms,” replied the Doctor. “…And there’s a massive paradox right now. Those Another Riders shouldn’t exist, yet they are.”

“Therein lies why we’re here,” said Tsukasa. “Doctor, we need you to take us back to 2013 and eliminate the Nestene Consciousness utterly.”

“Out of the question!” barked Rassilon. “That’s against the laws of time!”

“I already looked into the past with my Time Mazine,” said Sougo. “There’s too much damage to the timeline there thanks to the original Geiz and Woz being captured. That’s why the Autons are independent.”

“And they know that one of their Control Units,” said Tsukasa, “is a segment of the Key to Time.”

“…So they’ll try to use its latent chronon field to become the new Lords of Time, but one has to become the new Nestene Consciousness, hence the Auton civil war,” theorized the Doctor. Her brow furrowed in thought.

“…Doctor?” asked Rassilon.

“…Tsukasa, you’ll need to help me retrieve the TARDIS,” said the Doctor.

“It’s in Tokyo Tower, one of the lower levels,” replied Tsukasa. “So, you’re going to help us?”

“…It looks that way,” muttered the Doctor.

The group made its way to Tokyo Tower with Tsukasa disguised as an employee there. He flashed his badge to the guards and explained the situation. The guards nodded and let them through. He led them down to the lower levels where a cauldron stood. It looked like it could hold something. Nearby…was the TARDIS! “There she is!” called the Doctor.

“Halt!” called Another Geiz’s voice. He and his Autons arrived. “The Control Unit. You will not be asked again.” Just then, everyone heard muffled voices. William turned to see what looked like Plas-Keito and the Woz Duplicate tied up and gagged. They were mumbling something. William first headed over and pinched their cheeks, confirming they were real. The two protested through their gags.

“Had to make sure you weren’t plastic,” he said as he untied them.

“Move away from them!” called Another Woz’s voice. William didn’t listen and freed the real Keito. Just as Another Woz was about to grab him, Keito decked the monstrous Kamen Rider. He then reached for something as William freed the real Woz.

“NO!” called the Doctor. “Not now! Quick! Into the TARDIS!” Everyone dashed into the time machine.

The Ridewatch using Riders goggled in surprise. Tsukasa, on the other hand, just looked around with mild interest. “You’ve redecorated,” he said. “…I don’t like it.” The TARDIS then rocked, causing everyone to fall to the floor or hold onto something.

“What’s going on?!” yelped Sougo.

“The Autons are firing on the TARDIS,” replied the Doctor. “That’s the trouble with encountering a race that hates your guts!”

“But the TARDIS is indestructible!” argued Amy. “You said so yourself!”

“I said it was VIRTUALLY indestructible!” countered the Doctor. “I think the Autons are taking advantage of the temporal com…the Ridewatches!”

“What do you mean?!” asked William.

“They’re using the paradoxical energy to weaken the TARDIS shields!”

“That kind of temporal stress will crack the outer shell!” yelped Rassilon.

“And collapse the internal dimensions!” finished the Doctor.

“An implosion with us inside?!” asked William.

“A violent one!” confirmed the Doctor as she worked the console feverishly.

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Riding While Masked: Part 1

With a third of the segments of the Key to Time now in their possession, the TARDIS crew were sailing through the Time Vortex. Rassilon was at the console this time, checking things over with a huge book to occasionally look at. “Let’s see…Doctor, you really shouldn’t leave the brakes on.”

“Erm, Rassilon,” said the Doctor once she entered the console room, “what are you doing?”

“Replacing your brakes, Doctor,” replied Rassilon. “The TARDIS could use it.” The TARDIS shuddered a bit. “There we go! And the noises are switched on! The arrival and takeoff noises can be switched on and off. It was the Type 40’s that made it a feature!”

“Rassilon, I don’t want you to take umbrage, but might I suggest TARDIS maintenance be left to me? I know you’re the creator of the first TARDIS-.”

“That’s rather patronizing of you!”

“The point is, the old girl IS rather dimensionally temperamental, and Type 40’s aren’t your forte, are they?”

“They are when the manual is available,” retorted Rassilon as she closed the book and waved it in the Doctor’s face. “Maybe indulge your TARDIS and fix it according to the manual once in a while, hm? It would keep its grumblings down to a minimum.” The TARDIS shuddered again.

“Yes, all right, you don’t need to test the brakes again!” remarked the Doctor.

“I’m not, we’re slowing down for arrival,” replied Rassilon. The TARDIS made its arrival noise and the thud followed.

“…Well…thank you,” mumbled the Doctor. She then put her hands on the telepathic circuits. “Is that really what you’ve been telling me?” she asked the TARDIS. “You just want the occasional repairs according to the book?” The TARDIS mentally responded. “…Every 2,000 years, then. All right, old girl. I’m sorry for not listening properly.” The TARDIS sent waves of reassurance. “Now then,” the Doctor checked the readings on the other console panels, “let’s see where we are. …Huh, Japan again.”

“Japan?” asked William’s voice as he and Amy entered the console room. “Are we gonna see Godzilla again?”

“Hopefully not,” replied the Doctor. “We’re in Tokyo. Ginza, to be precise. A high-end fashion shopping district in Chūō, built on an old swamp before becoming what it is today.”

“I suppose the big question is when we are,” mused Amy.

“Readings say the local date is…the 13th of April, 2025,” said the Doctor.

“Ah, my native time,” chuckled William. “Only four months from when I first went inside the TARDIS.”

“So, what alley did we land in?” asked Rassilon.

“…We…We didn’t,” replied the Doctor.

“Doctor!”

“We’re somewhere public?” asked Amy.

“Won’t the TARDIS stick out like a sore thumb?” quizzed William. “I mean, it’s got English words and the Japanese-.”

“It’s all right,” assured the Doctor.

“All right?! Doctor, you and Rassilon look human, yes, but your accents sound British to me. I’ve got African features and have an American accent. The three of us could at least pass for human, but Amy…she’s pink, wearing black, and she’s a three-foot-tall talking hedgehog with connected eyes!”

“William’s right, Doctor,” agreed Rassilon. “We Time Lords don’t care to be conspicuous…some of us, anyways.”

“Everyone, here’s what I observed about average people, even the average people within Time Lord society,” said the Doctor. “You put a mysterious blue box with a bunch of foreigners in it slap bang in the middle of town, what do you do? You walk past it because it’s too weird for you and you’d quickly focus on normal things like bills or jobs or train schedules. Now please, everyone, let’s not get bogged down by our oddities. Let’s just, I dunno, go find the third segment.”

“…Oh, very well,” sighed Rassilon. She retrieved the tracer and everyone headed to the door.

William was surprised that he was looking at the signs and reading English. “…Doctor, you said the TARDIS had universal translators, right?” he asked. “Do they also work on signs?”

“Of course. Why?” asked the Doctor.

“Nothing, just checking.”

“…It’s somewhere in this vicinity,” remarked Rassilon as she looked at the tracer. She then pointed it down an alley. The clicking then spiked! “Down there!” she said.

“Come on, let’s try and make this quick,” urged the Doctor. Everyone then headed down the alley. There didn’t seem to be anything worthwhile, but they couldn’t take the chance. What they didn’t realize was that they were being watched. As Rassilon waved the tracer, it clicked rapidly as it pointed at a pile of objects. One of the objects seemed to be a roughly-shaped sphere made of pale-pink plastic.

“…Doctor!” called Rassilon. Everyone rushed to her.

“What is it?” asked the Doctor. Rassilon pointed the tracer at the plastic sphere. The Doctor’s eyes widened. “…Oh dear,” she muttered.

“A shopping district will make a perfect place for its army,” said Rassilon.

“Doctor, Rassilon, what’s going on?” asked William. “Is that thing really the third segment?”

“Yes, but now it’s become one of the more dangerous segments,” replied the Doctor. “That’s a Nestene Control Sphere. The Nestene Consciousness is here.”

“What’s the Nestene Consciousness?” asked Amy.

“A creature that can control anything made of plastic,” explained the Doctor. “Toys, electronic casings, usually shop window dummies.”

“…Like the one over there?” asked William as he pointed down the alley. The shop window dummy was for women’s clothing, evidently. It had ditched the heels as it walked. Yes, walked. It was moving.

“That’s not a dummy anymore!” warned Rassilon. “That’s an Auton soldier for the Nestene Consciousness! Grab that sphere and run!” William grabbed the sphere and was about to run, but the exit was blocked. It looked like a Japanese school boy was standing there, adolescent and with the build of a young judo fighter.

“Kid, get out of the way!” protested William.

“The Control Unit,” demanded the kid. “Hand it over.”

“…Wait a minute,” muttered William. He noticed that the kid looked too shiny, almost…like plastic. “…Doctor, can this Nestene thing make plastic people?!”

“It can create duplicates, yes,” replied the Doctor. She then looked down the other end of the alley. “…Oh dear! William, come back here!” The plastic kid looked down to the dummy.

“Destroy. Total destruction. The Time Lords first. They must pay for what they’ve done to us.”

“Yep, still sore about that!” gulped the Doctor.

“Sore about what?!” asked Rassilon. “And why us first?! We were allies!”

“Until they lost their food planets in the Time War!”

“They can’t blame us for that!”

“Doctor, I’m not sure I like what the Auton’s doing!” warned Amy. The Auton raised its right hand, then the fingers came down on a hinge at the pinky joint and a thin tube extended.

“GET DOWN!” called William. Everyone ducked as the tube fired something, making a noise that sounded like a click and a woosh. The shot caused a trash bag to explode!

“Great! A dummy with a gun!” said Amy.

“Sounds like the average American!” replied William. Rassilon then threw another trash bag at the Auton, knocking it down.

“RUN!” called the Doctor. The group ran down the alley, taking the sphere with it!

“STOP!” called the kid. He chased after them while raising his right hand, his fingers falling away on their own hinge, revealing his own Auton gun. He fired, but couldn’t get a decent shot.

“I have to admit, I never thought I’d be running from a window dummy!” said William as the crew escaped. They found a place to catch their breath.

“…Doctor, we HAVE to defeat the Nestene Consciousness,” panted Rassilon. “On top of them converting Earth into a new food planet, they’ll possess the third segment.”

“Both bad in the long run,” remarked the Doctor. “We need to find where it’s broadcasting from.”

“Broadcasting?” asked William. “You mean the Nestene thing is using a signal to make plastic killers?”

“Yes, and it would need a powerful transmitter.”

“What about Tokyo Tower?” The Doctor pondered William’s guess.

“That would be a likely place,” she said. “But we’d need to get there quickly and the Autons will certainly intercept us if we used Japan’s public transport.”

“Crap, and I don’t have yen on me,” muttered William.

“What about the TARDIS?” asked Amy.

“The TARDIS is now ours,” came the voice of the plastic kid as he and the Auton caught up, aiming their arm-guns. “The Control Unit belongs to us. Hand it over.”

“Hold on a minute!” called the Doctor. “The kid you’re impersonating, the one still alive! What’s his name?!”

“…Keito Myokoin,” replied the kid.

“Right, calling you Plas-Keito here,” said the Doctor. “Look, we need to borrow this and-!”

“That is our property,” replied Plas-Keito. “You have spoken long enough. Auton, destroy. Total Destruction.”

“That’s enough of that stupidity,” scoffed a voice. A man then stepped out of the alley. He had a pink camera and took a picture of the scene. The Doctor blinked.

“…Tsukasa Kadoya,” she said. “…Still taking pictures of alternate worlds, huh?”

“I see you still get into scrapes, Doctor,” replied the new man.

“New target. Tsukasa Kadoya. Destroy. Personal,” droned Plas-Keito. He put his fingers back on, concealing the gun, then pulled out a purple, circular device with a monstrous face on it. He pressed the button on top.

“Geiz!” announced the device in a demonic voice. The two Time Lords realized what was going on!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Time’s Energy: Part 4

Goku and Frieza were still fighting as the Doctor worked to free Whis. “Doctor, what should we do?” asked William.

“Find Frieza’s quarters, for one thing,” replied the Doctor. “He must have had some back up plan in place to find the Dragon Balls should Bulma prove to be too difficult.”

“Let me see where they are,” said Rassilon as she checked the computers. She got a map of the ship and found them! “Deck A, Corridor 1! Biggest doors under the bridge!”

“Got it!” called Amy. She and William were about to head out.

“Not you, William!” called the Doctor. “I need you to monitor Whis and Beerus’ life signs!”

“In case of medical emergencies, I get it,” replied William.

“Bulma, you’d better get Amy there,” suggested Rassilon.

“I’ll keep you safe,” Amy promised Bulma as she summoned her hammer.

“Right!” agreed Bulma. The two women then dashed out of the room.

“Rassilon, can you puzzle out how Frieza’s men wired Whis up and see if the reverse order can safely release him?” asked the Doctor.

“I already have it pulled up,” replied Rassilon. “Here’s what to do…”

Amy and Bulma arrived on the proper deck and found the corridor. The doors to Frieza’s quarters were guarded. “Two of them,” said Amy.

“Now what?” asked Bulma.

“Watch.” Amy approached the two guards.

“Hold it right there!” said one of the guards.

“Sorry about this, boys,” replied Amy, dialing up her cuteness. “But could you two help me?”

“…H-Help you?” asked the other guard. “In what way?”

“Well, you see, I’m an escaped prisoner.” Amy then leapt up and slammed her hammer into one of the guard’s heads, knocking him into his partner and knocking the two unconscious.

“…What was…?” asked Bulma.

“Something I picked up from the Doctor,” replied Amy. “Come on!” She grabbed a keycard from one of the guards and used it to open the door. The room was as you’d expect from a tyrant running a galactic empire. And there, in the room, were the seven Dragon Balls!

“…Hey, maybe we should use the wishes before Frieza does!” suggested Bulma.

“How can we do that?” asked Amy.

“I’ve been finding the Dragon Balls since I first met Goku when he was a kid. I know how to do this!” Bulma approached the Dragon Balls, stopping only when she was 2 meters away from them. She then spoke in a loud, clear voice. “Rise, Shenron, and grant my wishes!” she announced. The sky outside became dark as the Dragon Balls glowed.

Goku and Frieza had taken their fight outside, continuing to shake the earth as they scored a blow on their opponent. Somehow, Frieza was keeping up with Goku’s Ultra Instinct. “What’s the matter, Goku?!” cackled Frieza. “Surprised that I can keep up? I had to learn how to counter Ultra Instinct somewhere.”

“So this new form’s supposed to be Ultra Instinct Frieza?” asked Goku.

“Something along those lines. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s just call it Ultra Frieza. And this time, I’m positive I have a better handle on it than when I first fought you as Golden Frieza.”

“I can tell. You’re not burning through nearly as much energy as quickly. You must have trained that up.”

“I still hold you responsible for making me put in the effort, Goku. The Supreme Being isn’t supposed to train.” Goku smirked.

“Why not? There’s bound to be someone higher than the Supreme Being, maybe someone stronger than Zeno’s out there.”

“And that person stronger than the Omni-king will be-!” Frieza stopped the instant the sky turned dark. “…It was the middle of a sunny after…THE DRAGON BALLS!” Frieza rocketed towards the ship!

“Already?!” yelped Goku. “But who?!”

Back in Frieza’s quarters, a stream of light burst through the hull, tearing a giant hole in it. The light then coalesced into a ninety-meter-long Chinese dragon with green scales, deer antlers, flowing whiskers on either side of his nose, and glowing red eyes! Amy goggled in awe at what she saw. “…Wow!” she whispered.

“I am Shenron, the Eternal Dragon!” boomed the dragon. “Speak your wishes three and I shall grant them!”

“Hey, Shenron, it’s Bulma!” called Bulma. “I’m actually gonna have to spend two wishes at once here because I wish for you to restore King Kai to life as well as…well, Goku says there’s a monkey and a talking cricket with him.”

“Bubbles the monkey and Gregory the Cricket, yes,” replied Shenron. “Finally getting King Kai off Goku’s back, hm? Very well, your greater wish is granted!” Shenron’s eyes glowed brighter, then dimmed to their usual brightness. “King Kai, Bubbles, and Gregory are now fully back to life. You have one wish left.”

“Thanks, Shenron!” called Bulma. “Amy, the last wish is yours.” Amy nervously looked up at the wishing dragon.

“M-Mighty Shenron,” she gulped, “I’m on a quest to find the segments of the Key to Time.”

“Ah, so that is why the Doctor retrieved Rassilon,” boomed Shenron.

“…Y-You know about-?!”

“Shenron knows almost everything,” explained Bulma.

“W-Well, Lord Shenron,” continued Amy, “the tracer goes nuts every time it points at Whis, but the Doctor said that a segment of the Key to Time can even be a living being. I only wish to know if Whis himself is the segment or if it’s an item on his immediate person.”

“A simple wish, and a good first wish for you, Miss Rose. The segment of the Key to Time that you seek in this spatio-temporal point is in the shape of the collar of Whis’ robes.”

“The collar? That makes me feel better! Thank you, Shenron!”

“With your wishes fulfilled, I shall take my leave!” Shenron then glowed as the Dragon Balls rose through the hole in the ship. Shenron then vanished and the Dragon Balls flew off in seven different directions…right as Frieza arrived.

“NO!” he shouted. “Why you females! You’ll regret denying your lord and master!”

“Saucer-ship, superiority complex,” snarked Amy. “You sure you’re not a Dalek?”

“There is ONE similarity I’ll gladly indulge in, our proclivity for genocide!” Frieza then pointed into the air and created an energy sphere that expanded!

“Oh no! That’s Frieza’s death ball!” gulped Bulma. “I heard that’s how he destroyed Goku’s birth world of Vegeta!”

“It won’t, I can assure you,” came a voice. Bulma and Amy turned to see the Doctor, Rassilon, and William arriving with Whis and a fully-recovered Beerus. Frieza gulped.

“Lord Beerus! You’re all right!” cheered Bulma.

“No thanks to that imp, Frieza!” snarled Beerus. “I take it you’re responsible for frustrating his goals?”

“Me and Amy both!” replied Bulma.

“I suppose I should thank you, but I have something else on my mind. For instance, Frieza, how did you make yourself immune to Hakai?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?!” snarled Frieza. “Since you’ve proven to be rather passe about your duties and Zeno seems to be too interested in amusements, I thought it best to start on this path!”

“That’s the dumbest decision you’ve ever made, you entitled little bugger! You’ve proved yourself much more difficult to use Hakai on than the Daleks or Cybermen! So I’m going to have to settle for you and your ship and crew to be transported to the other side of the universe! Whis!”

“At once, Lord Beerus,” replied Whis. He tapped the end of his staff to the ground. A bright flash of light filled the air…and when everyone could see, all that was there was the cliff overlooking the ocean, Goku returning to his friends, and the TARDIS and its team.

“…Well, a literal Deus Ex Machina on the orders of Beerus, of all people,” muttered Rassilon as she dusted herself off.

“Come on, at the end of it, Rassilon,” argued Whis, “it was either him or that Skuruvian.”

“The Skuruvian, I could somewhat understand,” replied Rassilon, “but why the lazy oaf of a hairless cat?!”

“You know, I can hear you, Rassilon!” hissed Beerus.

“I hope you can!” retorted Rassilon.

“Okay!” interrupted the Doctor. “I think we all need to cool off a bit.”

“Oh! Rassilon! Could I have the tracer?” asked Amy.

“You know what the segment is?” asked Rassilon.

“Sure do! Shenron told me and Bulma!”

“…Very well,” said Rassilon. She handed the tracer to Amy.

“Sorry in advance, Whis,” said Amy. She then touched the tracer to Whis’ collar. It then turned into its original form!

“Hey, wait a minute!” protested Beerus. “What are you doing, gathering the Key to Time?!”

“A mission I was thrust into by the Black Guardian,” explained Rassilon. “He said that the universe’s balance was dipping too close to order, so it needed to be restored.”

“…Are you sure it was the Black Guardian?” asked Beerus. “Or have you finally become color-blind, Oh Founder of the Time Lords?” Rassilon looked ready to punch Beerus for that, but the Doctor held her back.

“I have to say, this adventure was a whirlwind,” remarked William.

“So was you stealing from my wardrobe!” protested Whis.

“Don’t worry, Whis,” assured the Doctor. “It’ll come back to you when we’re done.”

“I suppose there’s that consolation,” sighed Whis.

“Hey, Lord Beerus,” called Goku, “you think I could train on your planet for a bit? I need to relax somehow.”

“And what, pray tell, do you have to offer this time? Lettuce? Carrots?” asked Beerus.

“I was thinking pork roast with pineapple.”

“I’ll get it ready,” offered Bulma. “Doctor, are you guys-?” They then heard the TARDIS taking off! The Doctor and her friends had dashed inside the craft! “…How did four people-?!”

“Dimensional transcendentalism, Lady Bulma,” replied Whis. “The Time Lords were famous for making things that were bigger on the inside.”

“Good thing we’re getting away from someone that can use Hakai,” muttered the Doctor. “The old girl gets nervous around such people.”

“Any TARDIS would, they can’t survive such a technique,” remarked Rassilon. She fanned herself with her hand.

“…You okay?” asked William.

“I’m fine, William,” assured Rassilon. “Just a bit exhausted.”

“I’ll get us to our next destination,” offered the Doctor. “You all get some rest.”

“Ooh, hello bed!” sighed Amy. Everyone headed to their rooms. As she got into the privacy of her room, Rassilon checked to make sure no one was listening outside, then sat on the bed. She then looked at her hand…and golden light started pouring out of it. Rassilon shut her eyes tight, then the glow died down.

“…Not yet,” she pleaded to herself. “Not yet!”

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Time’s Energy: Part 3

The TARDIS crew as well as their new friends were led to cells while Whis was still in the lab. Rassilon and Ginyu struggled for dominance and control of the body they now shared. The Doctor, meanwhile, thought hard about how Frieza’s plan would require the Dragon Balls. William and Amy stood by while Goku tried to punch his way out and Bulma had a few choice words for Frieza’s men. “YOU THINK I’M GONNA ROT HERE FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE?!” she shouted. “WHEN VEGETA GETS BACK, YOU’RE ALL GONNA HAVE TWO SAIYANS RAMPAGING THROUGH THIS FLYING PIECE OF TIN FOIL!”

“How long has she been shouting?” muttered William.

“An hour, I think,” replied Amy. “I HAD hoped I’d get something about Frieza’s plans from Ginyu, but he’s too busy wrestling with Rassilon.”

“…Goku,” called William.

“Yeah?” asked Goku as he punched the wall to no avail.

“There are multiple sets of Dragon Balls, yeah?”

“That’s right.”

“With their own set of rules?”

“Uh huh.”

“And Ginyu said that Frieza used the Namekian Dragon Balls to resurrect him and his men,” continued William.

“Yep. Though Frieza would have had to have used the Namekian Dragon Balls twice after a year passed for New Namek,” explained Goku.

“How’s that?” asked William.

“Well, while our Dragon Balls take a year to recharge after they’re used, the Namekian Dragon Balls take only 130 days,” replied Goku. “And though the person that gathered them gets three wishes, including bringing back someone from the dead, they can only return one person at a time, regardless of how long it is. For us, we can bring back anyone as long as they’ve only been dead for a year. Any longer, we can’t bring them back. Even then, that limits our three wishes to two.”

“…And there’s only five in the Ginyu Force, right?” asked Amy, catching onto William’s logic. Bulma stopped shouting when she heard Amy’s question.

“…Yeah, there are,” said Bulma. “So what did Frieza use his sixth wish for? …Unless…”

“Information concerning the experiment he’s conducting,” finished the Doctor. “But limited information… …Of course! He needs more data! He would need the creator deity as well as a destroyer and a sort of neutral party such as Whis. But to go about combining their energies as he said…how very worrying.” The Doctor got up and started tinkering with the controls to her cell door. After a bit of rewiring, the forcefield vanished. “There.” She then went to a console and keyed in a command. All the doors unlocked. “Come on, everyone. We need to settle Rassilon’s dilemma first. Goku, be a dear and get her.”

“Right!” replied Goku. He then went to Rassilon’s cell and grabbed her.

“UNHAND ME, YOU UNSTYLISH OAF!” shouted Ginyu.

“I have to agree with the ham-actor in my head! PUT ME DOWN!” protested Rassilon.

“Will you quit squirming?!” snapped Goku. “I can’t begin to imagine what it’s like having two minds in your head!”

“That’s why Time Lords only do the telepathic thing with one another,” remarked the Doctor. They managed to get the squirming Time Lord with two minds to a lab and set her down on a table. The Doctor activated restraints.

“…Doctor, how much pain will Rassilon be experiencing?” asked William.

“Unfortunately, quite a lot,” replied the Doctor. “But we can’t exactly do anything without Ginyu’s original body.”

“Hold up, I think I see it here!” called Bulma. The body was in a stasis tube.

“Perfect! Lay him down on the opposite table!” directed the Doctor. Goku did so and the Doctor wired headsets to both bodies. “No time for sedatives,” sighed the Doctor. “Sorry, Rassilon.” She activated the machine and electricity surged through the heads. Rassilon and Ginyu screamed as the Doctor worked. After two agonizing minutes, the machine switched off and Rassilon opened her eyes slowly, groaning in pain.

“Oooogh…my head!” she complained.

“M-Mine too!” groaned Ginyu’s voice from his old body. The Doctor went to check on Rassilon.

“I’m all right now, Doctor!” insisted Rassilon.

“Gotta make absolutely sure,” replied the Doctor. She checked over Rassilon’s body. “…No signs of the regeneration process starting,” she said. “That’s always a good sign.”

“You…you put me back in my old body!” snarled Ginyu. “I can’t use my body swap ability on her again, thanks to your infernal meddling!”

“Well, if you WILL try and swap bodies with the founder of Time Lord Society-,” chided the Doctor.

“Doctor, we have other issues right now,” said Rassilon. “We have to save Whis. …And Beerus, I suppose.”

“You’re going nowhere!” shouted Ginyu as he blocked the door.

“Captain Ginyu, we don’t have time to fight you, so move!” insisted the Doctor.

“I don’t think so!” replied Ginyu. “Lord Frieza has demanded no interruptions as he gathers the Dragon Balls and-!” Amy got him to shut up…with her hammer, of course.

“…Wh-Where’d you get that?!” asked Goku.

“Fascinating,” remarked Rassilon. “The Time Lords couldn’t do that, despite our advances.”

“We’ll gawk at her ability to rearrange matter without dangerous nuclear effects later,” replied the Doctor. “Come on!” The group ran out of the lab.

Frieza stood on the bridge of his ship. “Status report of locating that Dragon Radar of Madam Bulma,” he ordered.

“Not good, my Lord,” sighed an alien. “Though we DID locate the Doctor’s TARDIS.”

“I suppose that’s as good a consolation prize as any,” sighed Frieza. “Have it brought aboard.”

“Yes, my Lord,” said the alien. Another alien then came onto the bridge.

“…You look like the proverbial Saurian Liger that ate the equally proverbial Brenchian Mouse,” observed Frieza. “What do you have to report?”

“Remember the last time we swiped the Dragon Radar?” asked the new alien.

“Yes, I recall. That led to Broly, remember?” scoffed Frieza.

“Well, our scientists had picked it apart last time after we gathered the Dragon Balls and we managed to make our own radar.”

“So you’re telling me this after no testing?”

“Forgive me for contradicting you…” the alien then produced two perfectly spherical orange crystals, one with four five-pointed stars inside it, the other with two.

“Two Dragon Balls already?!” cheered Frieza. “I underestimated your skill! How many teams went out?”

“Seven, my Lord. One for each Dragon Ball.”

“Excellent! Have them brought to my quarters! Pass it along to all the team leaders!”

“At once, my Lord.” The alien bowed and left.

“Now, as for you…” Frieza pointed a finger at the first alien.

“W-WAIT! LORD FRIEZA! I CAN-!” The hapless alien didn’t get very far as Frieza fired an energy shot from his finger and pierced the alien’s heart for failing him.

“Someone tidy up the bridge, please,” said Frieza, as if he were talking to a servant to get rid of some trash. The alarms then sounded. “Oh, what is it?!” complained Frieza.

“Lord Frieza!” called an alien. “The Saiyan and his friends have escaped! Ginyu’s back in his previous body, according to reports!”

“STOP THEM, YOU FOOLS!” shouted Frieza. “THE TIME LORDS WILL BE MAKING THEIR WAY TO FREE BEERUS AND WHIS!”

Frieza was frighteningly accurate at what the Doctor and her team were doing. They arrived at the same laboratory that held Beerus and noticed that Whis was in the same predicament as Beerus. “We’ll have to unwire them,” said the Doctor. “Rassilon, help me with Whis. He’s the higher priority in more ways than one.”

“Right,” agreed Rassilon. The two Time Lords checked out what the wires led to. “Looks like we have to be careful, Doctor,” warned Rassilon. “One wrong move would kill them.”

“Alternatively,” said Frieza’s voice as he arrived, “you could step away!”

“Frieza, what possible reason could there be to combine a Supreme Kai’s creation energy and a God of Destruction’s hakai energy?” asked the Doctor.

“To destroy Grand Zeno and his pathetic angels!” replied Frieza. “One NEEDS to be on Grand Zeno’s level to kill him!”

“Grand Zeno?” asked William.

“The Omni-king himself?!” asked Rassilon. “You fool! You’d destroy EVERY universe in the process!”

“And create new ones in my image!” laughed Frieza.

“You’ve lost your mind, Frieza!” snarled Goku. “I happen to like how Zenny and his twin are running things!”

“Well, you can’t exactly force your tastes onto a Supreme Being such as myself!” retorted Frieza. His natural and artificial armor then cracked and he exploded with energy. In the place of Frieza’s old form was someone with his face, a pale-gray body, purple gems on his scalp, shoulders, shins, and forearms. That body then grew spikes, a longer tail, and white horns around the scalp. He then turned golden as a mouth guard appeared over his face.

“…A new form of Golden Frieza, huh?” asked Goku as his hair and eyes turned silver.

“…Ultra Instinct?!” asked Rassilon.

“Something I had to learn from my dearly departed brother, Cooler!” Frieza explained in response to Goku’s question. He then rushed at the Saiyan and the battle began!

“NOT HERE, YOU FOOLS!” shouted Rassilon, but the combatants weren’t listening!

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Time’s Energy: Part 2

The five landed on the balcony of Capsule Corp and lined up. They then performed a routine starting from the ends of the line and working towards the middle.

“I’M RECOOME!” shouted the first, a humanoid with a peanut-shaped head.

“I am…BURTER!” announced the second, a blue, lizard-like alien.

“I’M JEICE!” introduced the third, a crimson-skinned humanoid with long, white hair.

“GULDO!” said the fourth, a squat, green person with a large eye on each side of his comparatively large head with a normal face in the center.

“GINYU!” finished the last, a bull-like humanoid. The five then performed a group pose.

“WE ARE THE GINYU FORCE!” they all said.

“…Go Go Power Rangers,” muttered William.

“…Ginyu,” Goku whispered to himself as he seemed deep in thought. “…I swear I heard that name before.”

“You know, I think I’ve heard about you lot,” said the Doctor, “but I thought…well, you met your maker.”

“They DID, Doctor!” gulped Bulma. “On Namek! They worked for that evil scumbag, Frieza, and-!”

“Oh yeah!” remembered Goku. “They’re the guys with the silly poses!”

“SILLY?!” argued Jeice.

“Much as I would like to catch up,” hissed Ginyu, “we’re going to need the Dragon Radar. As I understand it, a Miss Bulma Briefs designed it to key in on the electromagnetic pulse of an active Dragon Ball.”

“That’s DOCTOR Briefs to you!” snapped Bulma. “And you’re not getting it, you body-snatching freak!”

“Ah, that’s right, YOU’RE that same Bulma! I remember possessing you!” purred Ginyu.

“What happened to your old purple body?” asked Goku.

“Dead on Namek, thanks to YOU, Son Goku!” replied Ginyu. “Now, will you be surrendering the Dragon Radar, or shall my men and I indulge in some exercise?”

“And by that,” called Jeice, “he doesn’t mean lifting-!”

“Thank you, Mr. Brenchian,” interrupted the Doctor, “we all got your Captain’s message. Now, surely we can come to some arrangement. What would your master want the Dragon Radar for?”

“Well, he had to wait a few times to use the Namekian Dragon Balls to get us all back,” replied Guldo, “but it was worth it! Now with Earth’s Dragon Balls-!”

“Guldo!” snapped Ginyu.

“Why would Frieza want the Dragon Balls this time?!” demanded Goku.

“And what ARE Dragon Balls?” asked William.

“I think I’ve heard of them before, but…the knowledge eludes me,” remarked the Doctor.

“Seven orbs capable of summoning a dragon that can grant desires exactly as the one who gathered them wants,” explained Rassilon. “Descended from what we call the Zalama Planets or the Super Dragon Balls according to the locals.”

“The Zalama Planets?” asked the Doctor. “They’re just a myth.”

“They’re as real as the Key to Time, Doctor,” replied Whis. “Only life-forms that could be considered gods can use them, but smaller Zalama Planets, or Dragon Balls, can be used by mortals. Each set of seven has their limits and it seems Frieza was patient enough to use the three wishes of the Namekian Dragon Balls twice to resurrect these clowns.”

“Then Goku’s question is rather pertinent, what would this Frieza want with this planet’s Dragon Balls?” mused the Doctor.

“I see there are five pairs of idle hands here,” came the voice of an upper-class sadistic businessman. A pod floated down with a humanoid alien inside. Though the only humanoid things about it were the two legs, the five-fingered hands, and the face with a nose, mouth, and eyes like a human. The alien had a long tail, pink arms with white bone gauntlets, armor on his chest with shoulder-pauldrons jutting out, a smooth purple scalp plate, and a pair of straight horns jutting out in opposite directions from the sides of his head. The Doctor goggled.

“…Oh…So HE’S Frieza,” she muttered. “That…well, not going to lie, that puts a damper on things.”

“Lord Frieza, I assure you,” said Ginyu, “we’re not being idle!”

“Then why, pray tell-?” Frieza then spotted Whis. “…Ah, being appropriately cautious. My mistake.”

“Nice to see you again, Frieza,” greeted Whis. “Perhaps you can tell us why you need the Dragon Balls here?”

“Oh, it’s not just the Dragon Balls,” replied Frieza. “You see, YOU shall help me in a great experiment. I already have Lord Beerus with me and-.”

“That’s twice I’ve heard Beerus’ name,” said Rassilon.

“Well, he IS our universe’s God of Destruction,” replied Goku.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME, WHIS?!” Rassilon protested at Whis.

“Well, who else was I going to pick, since you didn’t measure up?” asked Whis. “Skalvus?” At that, Frieza laughed.

“So a former candidate for this universe’s God of Destruction has come!” he said. “I must say, it’s quite humorous to see a human flail around as they continue to have ideas above their station!”

“Above you, Frieza?” asked the Doctor.

“Classy,” scoffed Frieza. “Ginyu, take them all up.”

“Yes, Lord Frieza!” replied Ginyu.

Everyone was taken aboard the ship and led to a lab. “…Doctor, how many species use saucer-shaped ships?” asked William.

“Oh, quite a lot,” replied the Doctor. “Astrans, Adipose, the Daleks, hell, us Time Lords did at one point.”

“Only our prototype TARDIS’ were saucer-shaped,” remarked Rassilon. “That was before we made the chameleon circuit. …Speaking of which, aren’t you ever going to fix yours?”

“I tried once,” said the Doctor. “I prefer the blue box. Besides, the old girl likes it anyways.” Rassilon rolled her eyes.

“Ah, here we are!” called Frieza. Inside the lab was a table with various wires attached to a subject. The person looked like an anthropomorphic hairless cat with purple skin, wearing a predominantly black, blue, and gold Egyptian-looking outfit that exposed how skinny he was.

“Beerus!” called Goku.

“It’s not often Lord Beerus is caught napping,” remarked Whis.

“Oh? Has he changed his ways?” asked Rassilon.

“…Perhaps I SHOULD rephrase that,” mused Whis. “So, what’s this experiment of yours?”

“A simple theory on whether or not creation energy and hakai energy can be blended together to one’s own ends,” replied Frieza.

“You can’t be serious,” scoffed the Doctor. “Those are two sides of the coin that makes up the universe, they CAN’T be blended.”

“Not without a certain…channel, shall we say?” chuckled Frieza. “That’s where an Angel like Whis comes in.” Whis giggled.

“I must say, Lord Frieza, that IS ambitious,” he said. “But how, pray tell, do you intend to sedate me long enough?”

“Well, for one thing, Whis…you haven’t checked your halo,” smirked Frieza. Whis blinked and looked at his halo. On either side seemed to be clamps attached to wires. Frieza pressed a button and energy surged through Whis, putting him into painful convulsions. Frieza then pulled out a strange headpiece with a red eye lens covering his right eye. He pressed a button on the headpiece and smirked as readings flashed on the lens. “And there it goes! Your power level is dropping to that of a mortal! Same technique I used with Beerus here.”

“You cease that vile experiment at once!” demanded Rassilon.

“Ginyu, that woman’s power level is higher than your current body’s,” directed Frieza. “Shut her up.”

“With pleasure, Lord Frieza!” replied Ginyu. He then grabbed Rassilon and made her face him.

“What are you going to do?!” demanded William.

“Ginyu, NO!” shouted Goku.

“CHANGE NOW!” announced Ginyu. Rassilon was frozen, almost petrified, as a spectral image of Ginyu entered Rassilon’s body. Ginyu’s body then collapsed.

“This is bad!” gulped Goku. “He’s changed bodies with her!” Rassilon’s face then formed a grin…and she made a ridiculous pose!

“And here we have it!” she announced…or rather, HE announced. It wasn’t Rassilon talking, it was Ginyu!

“What are you trying to do, you creep?!” shouted Bulma. “You let Rassilon go right now or-!”

“Hold on, what did you say that name was?” asked Frieza, his tone reaching icy levels.

“She’s Rassilon! A…what did she and the Doctor say they were…A Time King from Bramble-dee!”

“…That’s Time LORD of Gallifrey,” corrected the Doctor. “I’m surprised you didn’t run a bio-scan, Frieza. Or check to see if a TARDIS was in the vicinity of Capsule Corp.”

“…You’re lying through your teeth, Madam!” hissed Frieza. “The Time Lords are dead! The-!” At that moment, Ginyu clutched his new head in pain.

“L-Lord Frieza!” he said. “S-Something’s-!” At that moment, an angry snarl crossed the face.

“GET OUT OF MY HEAD, YOU PARASITE!” That…was NOT Ginyu!

“Of course!” realized the Doctor. “Rassilon’s mental control over her own body is greater! No one can possess a Time Lord like that, especially not the Founder of Time Lord Society!”

“…Gentlemen, scan for a TARDIS in the vicinity,” Frieza ordered his men. “If this woman is telling the truth, then the Daleks missed a spot as I did with the Saiyans!”

“Frieza, I would advise against stopping us,” urged the Doctor. “We have a quest to complete and-!”

“Lord Frieza, there IS a TARDIS!” called an alien. “Specifically, the one that looks like a blue box!” An image of the TARDIS appeared.

“Doctor!” gulped Amy.

“…So, you’re this so-called Doctor?” asked Frieza.

“…I was a bit of a mustached old man when we met, but yes,” replied the Doctor. “I believe it was the Battle of Planet Frost.”

“So it IS you, Doctor!” hissed Frieza. “Oh, I’ll take great pleasure in finishing what the Daleks started!”

Categories
Doctor Who: Crossings Series 2

Time’s Energy: Part 1

It had been a few days in the TARDIS since the Doctor and her crew retrieved the first segment of the Key to Time. Rassilon had just gotten up and put her dress on, pinning her hat to her hair when she finished. She grabbed her parasol and strode to the console room. As usual, the Doctor was tinkering with the console’s internal mechanisms. “Must you constantly fiddle with the TARDIS?” asked Rassilon.

“You know me,” replied the Doctor. “Always tinkering.”

“Doctor, it’s working perfectly right now,” argued Rassilon. “Your constant manipulations make it land somewhere other than where you want it to go.”

“Oh, that’s been a staple of the Type 40’s. Besides, the old girl likes it.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s necessary to-!” The console beeped.

“Ah, that would be the tracer, finally locating the second segment,” said the Doctor. “Could you rouse Amy and William, Rassy?”

“You will address me as Rassilon, Doctor!” hissed Rassilon. “And I’m not your maid!” She still stormed off to Amy and William’s bedrooms while the Doctor checked the instruments.

“…Oh…” she said. “…It’s there. …Well, that’s alarming. Didn’t want to go to THEIR territory.”

The TARDIS landed in a darkened room. The only light was from the lamp at the top as it flashed until the TARDIS fully materialized in the room. The crew then stepped out with Rassilon pointing the tracer in front. “Can’t you let others try it?” asked the Doctor.

“I was entrusted with it, I’ll use it, thank you,” replied Rassilon. The tracer crackled. “…It’s somewhere in this building, we know that. …But where?” At that moment, they heard voices.

“I’m telling you,” said one, “that radar has to be around here!”

“Well, are you absolutely sure about that?” asked another. “Lady Bulma wasn’t particularly sure of where she put it.”

“Well, where else would you put the important stuff?” asked the first voice. “It’s where Chi Chi puts our money stuff.”

“You mean the tax forms? I’m pretty sure there’s a file cabinet in there, though I’ve never-.” The two speakers then entered the room. One was a muscular man in an orange and navy fighting suit with no sleeves and black, messy hair, the other was a pale-blue skinned man with long white hair pulled up, burgundy robes with a black collar, and a large, blue ring floating around his neck. The Doctor and Rassilon goggled.

“Doctor, is that-?!” asked Rassilon.

“Sure looks like one!” replied the Doctor.

“Well, this is certainly a surprise,” chuckled the pale-blue man. “Just who, pray tell, are you?”

“Whis, is that really you?!” asked Rassilon.

“…You know my name, Madame?” quizzed the man. He then looked at the brooch and hat pin Rassilon wore. “…Ah, it’s been a while since I read Circular Gallifreyan. …Wait, why, madame, do you have that madman’s name on your hat pin?”

“Whis, it’s me! You know, the one who spoke to you about the Time War’s end, though how you said it was undefined.”

“Ah, so it IS you, Rassilon,” sighed Whis. “The only reason I said that was because of a Time Lock that was erected during the last day of the Time War. Why did you set that up?”

“She didn’t,” answered the Doctor. “I did. I thought I was destroying Gallifrey at the time.”

“Erm, scuse me!” called the other man. “Sorry, little lost here. Um, Whis, how do you know them?”

“Oh, they’re Time Lords from the lost planet of Gallifrey,” replied Whis. “At least, that’s the case for two of them. Though I can’t say as I understand why two people from different time periods are here.”

“Oh, that’s a habit of the Doctor’s, picking up strays like that,” scoffed Rassilon.

“Not strays, friends!” argued the Doctor.

“Okay, we’re all a little lost here!” called William. “How about we introduce the rest of us? Starting with me! I’m Dr. William Davies from 21st century Earth.”

“And I’m Amy Rose from the colony world of Mobius,” said Amy.

“Oh, Sonic the Hedgehog’s biggest fan, I see,” chuckled Whis. “Well, I’m Whis, the attendant for the God of Destruction of Universe 7. You know, Rassilon once was a candidate for being a God of Destruction, but she turned it down once Omega was lost.”

“I’m sure,” remarked William. He looked at the spiky-haired man. “…You’re taking it all in stride.”

“Well, this isn’t exactly the strangest adventure I went on,” replied the man. “I’m from another planet myself and I’ve fought in a tournament with other champions from other universes!”

“You seem a bit eager for combat,” remarked the Doctor. “So you’re not human? What planet are you from?”

“Planet Vegeta,” replied the man. “I’m a Saiyan!”

“So you’re a survivor of the Vegeta Calamity,” said Rassilon.

“Yep! My Saiyan name’s Kakarot, but you guys can call me Goku!” The Doctor’s eyes went wide.

“Son Goku?! The Super Saiyan?!” she asked.

“Hey, what’s all this?!” shouted a woman’s voice. There was a turquoise-haired woman standing in the door. “Goku, what the hell are you doing in my bedroom?! Is your instant transmission on the fritz again?!”

“No, no! Nothing like that, Bulma!” replied Goku. “I was just looking for the Dragon Radar and-!”

“Well I don’t keep it here! Why didn’t you check the lab?! And what are you doing here, Whis?!”

“Oh, just being a voice of reason for Goku as usual,” replied Whis. “Also welcoming our Time Lord friends here.”

“Time Lord?” asked Bulma, her anger replaced with confusion.

“That would be us, Miss…” said the Doctor.

“I’m Bulma, and you are?”

“Oh, I’m the Doctor. That’s William, Amy Rose from Mobius, and Rassilon.”

“How about we all step out of the room and perhaps chat,” suggested Whis. “I must admit, I’m a little curious as to what you’re doing here, Rassilon.”

Everyone made it outside and were served tea. Rassilon sighed happily. “…Have to admit, tea is one of the greater inventions of humanity Time Lords couldn’t hope to replicate.”

“One of the reasons I like humans,” chuckled the Doctor. “Now, I’m sure you want to know why we’ve landed here, Mr. Whis.”

“I would like an answer, yes,” replied Whis. The Doctor turned to Rassilon.

“Well? You kick-started this quest,” she said. Rassilon sighed.

“I had a run-in with the Black Guardian,” she explained. “The universe is drifting too close to order and stagnation and I have to round up all six segments of the Key to Time to restore the balance.”

“The universe IS drifting too close to stagnation, as you said,” remarked Whis, “but are you sure it was the BLACK Guardian that sent you on that quest?”

“Their clothes for their mortal disguise were black, their voice was booming, they introduced me to pain as a taste of what would come should I fail, I’m positive it was the Black Guardian.”

“That sounds like the Black Guardian, all right,” said Whis. “But restoring the balance?”

“Yes, that’s not the Black Guardian’s MO,” confirmed the Doctor.

“And I never went on a quest for the Key to Time,” continued Rassilon, “but the Doctor did. I converted a bowship into a time vessel (forgoing the dimensionally-transcendental interior) and sought the Doctor’s TARDIS. I found it and told her of my plight-.”

“Then I took pity on her and we all found one segment so far,” said the Doctor.

“Then you have the Core of the Key to Time?” asked Whis.

“Right here,” confirmed Rassilon as she pulled out the tracer. It then crackled rapidly. Rassilon waved about a bit, confirming that the rapid crackling happened only when it was pointing at Whis. “…It’s somewhere on your person,” she said.

“Well, that’s quite unusual,” remarked Whis.

“It’s either an object on his person,” said the Doctor, “or Whis himself is the segment.”

“How’s that possible?” asked Amy.

“It’s not uncommon,” replied the Doctor. “I did say that the segments could be anything or anyone.”

“What if Whis IS the segment?” asked Bulma.

“Well, Beerus won’t have an attendant for a while,” replied Whis, “my father would seek vengeance on the Doctor for daring to overpower an Angel, and Universe 7 would-.”

“Hang on, did you say Beerus?!” asked Rassilon. “He’s not-?!”

“I got it!” called Goku as he finished off his snack…or rather, three-course meal. Those not used to Saiyans goggled at how quickly he finished off that meal as if it were a snack.

“…H…How…?” faltered William.

“I thought Sonic had a big appetite!” gulped Amy.

“I heard Saiyan metabolism was high, but I didn’t think it was THAT high!” yelped the Doctor.

“What is it, Goku?” asked Bulma.

“Well, it kind of ties into why I was looking for the Dragon Radar in your bedroom, Bulma,” replied Goku. “I finally remembered that King Kai wanted to be returned to life, but we can use the second wish to figure out if this key thing IS Whis or just something he has on him right now!”

“Erm, wish?” asked William.

“Whis, what is Goku talking about?” asked Rassilon.

“Well, you ARE familiar with-?” Whis’ question was interrupted by a sound overhead. A circular shadow then hovered over the Capsule Corp Compound. Everyone looked up to see a flying saucer hovering menacingly over the city! A group of five then flew out of the saucer and landed. “…Now how on earth did THEY come back?” muttered Whis.